There’s something unusually candid about this week’s member content. A CCO reflects on her Oscar nomination for a short film about mortality and asks what we’re doing with the time we have. A strategist builds his entire agency philosophy around “good, not growth, and in that order.” An agency names extraction debt as the thing most brands won’t admit they’re carrying. Indie Agency News members are drawing direct lines between culture, community and what the work costs — and the reading is genuinely compelling. Plus, there is some shamrock-friendly work for St. Patrick’s Day.
🎬 The Follower Count Funeral
Vanity metrics had a good run. The industry is moving on.
Fohr Founder James Nord recently sat down with Indie Agency News to challenge one of the influencer industry’s most persistent pricing assumptions. “The idea of paying creators based on follower count alone will seem ridiculous in a few years time,” Nord said in a conversation worth bookmarking about where creator economics are headed.
Buntin social specialists Griffin Dobson and Sam Pinsly arrived at a similar destination from the brand side, arguing in Little Black Book that organic social must be built around real audience relationships — not product pushes — and sharing a clear-eyed look at how AI is already changing day-to-day social media work inside agencies.
🏆 Awards Season, Indie Edition
It’s been a very good few weeks to be an independent shop.
Rethink had an exceptional stretch. Partner and CCO Tara Lawall received an Oscar nomination as co-writer of the animated short “Retirement Plan” — and her reflections in Little Black Book on mortality, meaning and “the relentless onslaught of everydayness” are some of the most quietly profound words to come from advertising this year. The agency also earned #2 Most Creative Independent Agency in the WARC Creative 100 — a global ranking built entirely on significant award wins.
Duncan Channon took home Best Corporate Branding at the PRWeek Awards in New York, with PG&E’s “leading with love” philosophy recognized through work the agency developed alongside Pacific Gas and Electric Company and PR lead Highwire Marketing.
Chemistry was named to the 2026 Ad Age A-List as a Standout, and used the moment to shine a light on fellow indie shops earning A-List recognition — including GSD&M, Preacher, Terri & Sandy and Zulu Alpha Kilo, among others.
POKE THE BEAR won Best in Show at the 2026 American Advertising Awards for their work with See’s Candies — the kind of top honor that says as much about the client willing to take the shot as about the agency that took it.
Alto had a pleasant Oscars night revelation: the Expensify product placement the agency helped land in the film F1 just won the Oscar for Best Sound. Smart integration that holds up in the most literal sense possible.
🧭 When Uncertainty Is the Brief
Three takes on strategy in a world where the map keeps getting redrawn.
David&Goliath CSO Brendan Robertson put words to something strategists are navigating every day right now in a new LBBonline feature on strategy in the age of uncertainty: “Uncertainty isn’t the enemy of strategy. It’s the proving ground.” The piece explores why modern strategists must help brands treat change as opportunity rather than threat.
Rethink Partner and CSO Sean McDonald made the case for depth over velocity in a Campaign Chemistry conversation — “It’s about good, not growth, and in that order. We are serial monogamists. We really care about the relationships” — in a full interview on building an agency culture that prioritizes creative independence worth sitting with.
DCA published a profile of performance agency ROAST that puts real data behind relationship-driven growth: 50% of clients stay over four years, 13% of staff have tenures exceeding ten years. The throughline is simple — when marketers move to new companies, they bring their agency relationships with them.
🤖 The Instinct Gap
AI can automate a lot. Knowing when something just feels right isn’t in the manual.
Laughlin Constable Executive Design Director Shawn Holpfer offered one of the more grounded takes on AI tools in a recent Adweek feature on what creatives are using right now: “Tools like ChatGPT won’t replace our instincts for recognizing when something just feels right. But they can free up time and energy for the idea itself.”
Doe-Anderson VP Kathy Keadle makes the complementary case in SmartBrief that AI has made earned media more valuable, not less — trust becoming the new premium in an automated world is something brand builders need to sit with.
Iris Global CSO Ben Essen challenged one of brand building’s foundational rules in a new Creative Salon piece, asking whether “be easy to remember” is still sufficient in a world where AI systems increasingly determine what gets surfaced first.
💸 The Extraction Debt Conversation
What brands take from culture — and what most of them aren’t giving back.
The Many dropped a piece that should be required reading for any brand thinking about community: “Every brand carries extraction debt. Most don’t know it until the moment they need community and find an empty room.” The full essay on The Participation Exchange doesn’t offer easy consolations.
Erich & Kallman co-founder Steven Erich made the complementary argument in Ad Age — that advertising’s real power lies in creating shared cultural moments that large groups experience simultaneously. “At our best, we’re creating moments that allow people to have a shared experience. That’s a huge responsibility. And a fantastic opportunity.”
Mother put that principle to work with an IKEA campaign built around a genuinely specific cultural insight: this year, Ramadan’s sunset falls during UK rush hour, meaning many Muslims break their fast while commuting home. Working with Amaliah and interior designer Noor Aliyah Ali, IKEA created Iftar At Ours — pop-up homes in London’s Southbank and Manchester’s Exchange Square where guests were invited in to break fast together.
🎯 Work That Earns Its Keep
On proving the case, one campaign and one client at a time.
Party Land is in year three of Men’s Wearhouse, and made what that means plain: “You don’t get to year 3 with a brand unless the work is working.” The first spot of the new campaign just launched — and from what’s visible, the standard holds.
Saylor Head of Production Harris Sherman and Creative Director, Campaigns, Brian Freia were direct about how the agency is approaching 2026 production in a Roastbrief interview: “Attention isn’t something you buy. It’s something you earn.” The production engine is built entirely around retention, shareability and cultural relevance.
Cactus Strategy Director Maeve Doherty laid out the financial argument for visual identity in a new LBBonline piece that makes the business case directly: “The brands that get it right consistently outperform the ones that don’t.”
Iris also had a standout piece of work in the run — the agency created a Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra spot featuring ex-England winger Ugo Monye sneaking into a Scottish pub during the Six Nations to demonstrate the phone’s Privacy Display feature. Airing in ITV’s new in-game ad format, it’s product integration that earns its laugh.
Praytell partnered with the Human Animal Bond Research Institute to launch The Real Reason for Pets — a 360 campaign built on science-backed benefits of pet ownership, spanning video, social and influencer content. The campaign site is the rare branded effort that leads with actual research.
🍀 Good Work, Good Timing, Good People
A Dublin pub in Dubai, $25K in pro bono creative and a team that shows up even when no one’s watching.
Those That Do helped Guinness create something genuinely worth experiencing for St. Patrick’s Day — The Thirsty Toucan, described as Dubai’s smallest Irish pub, complete with snug corners, live folk bands and Tayto crisps. The case study makes the argument clearly: the best brand experiences feel less like activations and more like somewhere you’d genuinely want to be.
Mother New York helps Uber explain the best reason for an Irish exit, also known as the Irish Goodbye, with new work featuring a relaxed Maura Higgins, from Love Island and Traitors. See the coverage in Muse by Clios.
Stoltz Marketing Group is running their annual Creators for Change program — $25K in pro bono creative services for an Idaho nonprofit doing meaningful community work. Applications close March 18. Worth passing along if you know a nonprofit that’s ready to grow its reach.
McGarrah Jessee hosted Nipun Mehta — recognized by the Dalai Lama for his compassionate service work — for a team lecture on the power of giving. The visit reinforced something the agency practices daily: “Human business is good business.”
BarkleyOKRP launched a new podcast today. TELL ME EVERYTHING with host Katy Hornaday is now live on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — worth a subscribe if you want advertising industry conversations that don’t take themselves too seriously.
345+ independent agencies share their best thinking, best work and best wins through Indie Agency News every week. If your shop isn’t part of the community yet, we’d love to have you.
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Kyle O’Brien is managing editor of Indie Agency News.
